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Last update:

$Date: 2015/08/30 21:53:29 $

History

1226

Oppenheim declared a Freie Reichsstadt.

1645

cellars mentioned in a description of the town by Merian.

Description

The Oppenheimer Kellerlabyrinth (cellar labyrinth of Oppenheim) is a
complex system of cellars inside the loess layers below the old medieval town.
The complex system of connected cellars has numerous levels of passages, most of
them connected in a weird and complex way.
Most of the passages are forgotten, there is no survey or map, and the purpose
is long forgotten.
The passages are too complex to be useful storage cellars.

There is a rather logic theory, which says that the rapidly growing commerce,
after the town was declared a Freie Reichsstadt in 1226, caused an urgend demand
for safe storage space.
But unfortunately the town is located between the Rhine river and the steep
vineyards, so there was no room to build above ground.
The merchants started to dig cellars below their houses in a rather
uncoordinated way.
The cool cellars were ideal to store food, and even the mined material was sold.

The underground below Oppenheim is composed of an up to eight metre thick layer
of loess.
The loess is not a rock, it is just very fine sand which was deposited by the
Ice Age wind which transported the dust of rock which were destryed by the
glaciers.
The fine dust was altered by weathering so it is now a mixture of sand and clay.
Normally we would think sand is unsuitable to dig holes.
But loess is different, it is possible to scratch holes into the sand, which
will be absolutely stable.
Both the sand and the clay were useful, the clay was used to pave the road in
the town.
However, there is one drawback, water oozing into the sand could cause an
collapse.
Leaky water or sewage pipes are a great danger for the cellars, and as a result
for the builings above the cellars.
When the caves collapse dolines form on the surface above.